Traffic to online retailers falls in June

The uncertain economic outlook affecting the High Street appears to be spreading online as ten out of 12 major retail brands attracted fewer online visitors in June than in May, according to the latest numbers from UKOM/Nielsen.

Traffic to the Marks & Spencer website dropped 12.7% in June
Traffic to the Marks & Spencer website dropped 12.7% in June

With only month on month figures available from UKOM, as the ratings began in January this year, yearly summer trends are difficult to take into consideration, but retailers will no doubt still be concerned to see a fall off, in some cases double digit, in traffic.

John Lewis was the only brand to record a significant increase in website traffic, which rose 3.5% to 3.18 million unique visitors.

Tesco, the second most popular retail brand after Amazon, was flat at 7.16 million unique visitors, ahead of Argos, which attracted 6.82 million, down 1.8% on May.

There were double-digit falls for four brands, including Marks & Spencer dropping 12.7% to 3.63 million and Sainsbury's dropping 16.9% to 2.25 million.

The trend was not confined to retailers, with the majority of the top 100 sites recording lower audiences than in May, when there were two bank holidays.

Newspaper websites were also down, the UKOM figures confirming the picture painted by ABC figures released two weeks ago.

Interestingly, the UKOM figures show News Corp newspapers, which do not report ABC figures, bucked that trend with a 0.9% rise to 4.1 million. UKOM defines News Corp newspapers as including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Scottish Sun and The News of the World ( which was closed on 7 July and published its final edition on 10 July).

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